


the james games

by talesofsuspenses



Category: Marvel
Genre: Engagement, Fluff, Fun, Humor, M/M, Party Games, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Tony Stark Has A Heart, its..just fucking fun, steve and tony are very much in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 10:36:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18467218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talesofsuspenses/pseuds/talesofsuspenses
Summary: "The purpose of the James Games," Peter declares, "is to determine who is the best, best man, who is the best James, place your bets now!"In which, Steve and Tony are engaged, and they settle, once and for all, who's best friend is the best.  Feat. very much in love Steve and Tony





	the james games

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoy!!

“I present to you, Avengers and co.,” Peter declares, spreading his arms and almost hitting Bruce with his clipboard, when everyone’s settled down, sprawled over the furniture with various snacks, “The James Games!” Peter hands Rhodey, Bucky, Steve and Tony a mini whiteboard and pen each, “The purpose of this game, is to, once and for all, determine who is the best, best man, who is the best James, place your bets now.”

“Oh no, I am _not_ placing a bet on this,” Sam denies when Peter faces him, he’d been in a college finance class once, and he was pretty sure that the professor would have an aneurysm if he put a bet on this.

Clint looked frantically between the pairs, Steve and Tony on one side of the coffee table facing Bucky and Rhodey respectively, all of them sitting cross-legged on the floor, “Uh, I don’t think I can legally gamble.”

“I genuinely never want to know,” Peter says, only mildly terrified, “what about the rest of you?”  
He was met with a resounding no from the rest of them, none of them were that dumb and /or suicidal.

“Yeah, smart idea. Right, the rules are: best men, you’re not allowed to look at the groom’s boards until I say, you’re not allowed any outside help, and I have final say in everything, agreed?” 

Steve, Bucky, Rhodey and Tony nod, “But the second this game finishes, and me and Rhodey win, Peter no longer has any more power in this tower,” Tony interjects.

“Damn it,” Peter curses under his breath, “I was hoping you’d overlook that.”

“You’re talking to a genius, kid, I don’t look over anything,” Tony says, grinning.

“It’s been known to happen, should I remind you of--” Peter starts.

“Ah, ah, ah, that’s something we never talk about, or should I tell Steve about _that time_?” Tony cuts, waving his hands, lest certain things become near enough public knowledge.

“Is he on about the time you--” Steve’s about to ask, turning to face him but Tony tugs him down for a kiss before he can finish his sentence, tugging on his hair and biting his lip. Everyone around them groans and throws popcorn at them until they stop. 

“Fuck me, it’s like watching Mom and Dad kiss,” Carol says, wrinkling up her nose and throwing an M&M at them. Steve catches it in his mouth after they break apart and sticks his tongue out at her. She sticks her tongue out back at him.

“Children, children,” Thor says, trying to placate them, “calm down.”

Steve glares at Carol one last time, for good measure, and then turns back to Tony, “Did you…” he doesn’t even need to finish his question for Tony to understand him.

“Yup,” Tony says, unashamedly, “love you, darling.”  
Steve leans in to kiss his cheek softly, “Mmm, love you too, baby.”

“Stevie, you’re fucking whipped, you know that right? It’s important to me that you know that,” Bucky says, entirely well used to Steve and Tony’s… SteveTony-ness.

“Yup,” Steve grins, wrapping an arm around Tony and pressing a kiss to the top of his head, “‘s why ‘m marrying him.”

Everyone fakes retching, they don’t really have a problem with them, far from it really, but it’s fun to give them shit.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony grumbles, “but I’m the one marrying him, so suck it.”

“Are we done?” Peter asks rubbing his hands together.

“They better be,” Rhodey scowls, “‘m pretty sure my teeth are gonna fall out at this point.” Tony sticks his tongue out at him.

“Okay, okay,” Peter says, clapping his hands, “First question, and it’s a two-parter, but still an easy one, folks, how long have you known your best friend, in whole years, and who has known their bestie the longest?”

“Question,” Bucky asks, before any of them had a chance to even uncap their pens, “does his time as a capsicle and my time as a murder bot count?”

“Nope,” Peter says, gleefully taking in the outrage.

“But they’re like, technically, two decades older than us,” Steve protests.

Peter shrugs, “Not my fault you proposed to an old man.”

“Hey!” Tony and Rhodey yell, at the same time.

“Respect your elders,” Tony says, attempting for disapproving.

“Settle, settle,” Peter says relishing in the power he currently holds, “Steve, Bucky, your ‘dead/murder-bot times’ don’t count, Steve, if you wanted to win, you shoulda proposed to a younger guy, Rhodey, Mr. Stark, yes, both of you are old.”

“Don’t regret it,” Steve says, leaning in to kiss Tony’s cheek again, “even if me ‘n Buck might lose.”

They all take a beat to do the maths and scribble the answer down. “Alright, on a count of three, turn your boards around,” Peter says, leaning forwards to do a drum roll on the table.

“Three. Two… One! Turns those boards gents!”

Bucky spins his board to reveal _28, the old guys :(_ and Rhodey reveals _34, suck it!!!_.

“Were they right? Lovebirds, time to check,” crows Peter, laughing when Bucky sticks his tongue out at Rhodey.

“Yup,” Tony says, grinning, flipping his board to show _34_.

“Yeah,” Steve says dejectedly, his board showing _28_ and a sad Mickey doodle.

“You’re adorable, Steve, you’re actually adorable, you’re- fuck- how?” Tony says, in disbelief, turning to him and running a hand through his hair. He smiles as he leans in and presses a sweet kiss to Steve’s reddening cheek.

“Just lucky I guess,” Steve whispers against Tony’s lips.

Everyone boos and/or fakes retching, “Both of ‘em are whipped as fuck,” Rhodey mutters to Bucky.

“Okay, okay, Mom, Dad, done? Good,” Peter asks, when everyone’s done, after Tony pulls Steve in for another kiss, partly out of spite for everyone else, mostly because he’s fairly certain (has been for a while now) that he’s addicted to Steve-kisses, “that round was a tie, off to a strong start, next question, a little harder, but we all know that y’all love a challenge--”

“Never say that again,” Nat interrupts.

“--duly noted, anyway, how many times have your grooms been arrested?”

Steve’s eyes widen comically, “What if, hypothetically, there are some times that the, hypothetical, best man doesn’t know about?”

“Stevie…” Bucky growls, “That better be completely hypothetical.”

“Peter, buddy, c’mon,” Steve asks, out of fear of his life.

“Nope. And don’t even think of lying, I asked JARVIS for this one,” Peter says gleefully.

“Tony, baby, if anything happens to me,” Steve says dramatically, taking his hands, “know that I love you, and I always will.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you, darling,” Tony says, playing along.

“Okay, okay, Jesus, new rule, no murdering anyone,” Peter says, hoping to save somebody, probably him, some paperwork.

“Fine,” Bucky mutters darkly, scrawling something on his board.

They’re quiet for a while, writing on their boards, “Steve,” Tony whispers, “are you counting on your fingers?”

“No,” Steve says, almost petulantly, dropping his hands. The tips of his ears redden slightly.

“You’re incredible, I love you so much,” Tony says, reverently.

“He’s a dumbass,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes, “can we flip them?”

“Go ahead, but no murdering, Coulson would be so mad.”

Tony and Rhodey flip both of their boards at the same time, both of them showing _21_ , Rhodey’s one also had _that fucking dumbass_ scrawled a the bottom.

“I’m feeling the love, platypus,” Tony grins.

Bucky flips his to show _11 but probs more_ , “Steve, show it,” he says.

Steve slowly turns his board, a small _22_ written in the middle and a Monopoly ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card doodled in the corner.

“Steve.”

“Bucky.”

“Steven.”

“James.”

“Honey,” Tony interrupts, “how have you gotten arrested more times than I have?”

“Yeah, Stevie?” Bucky asks, smiling as threateningly as he possibly can, “How’d that happen?”

Steve swallows audibly, “Who’s to say, really, the law was a lot stricter back in the day, anyway, Buck, you know that. Who won?”

“Steve, we will be having conversations after this,” Bucky says, glaring.

“Yessir.”

“Now that we know that no-one’s getting murdered, yet, Rhodey wins, obviously, but Steve, you’re wrong, you’ve been arrested 24 times, gotta give this one to the Tin Can Men,” Peter says.

“What? Oh wait, yeah, the second time in January ‘36 and the other time in 2014,” Steve says, immediately regretting his words when he realises that Bucky only knew about the _first_ time in January ‘36.

“Steve!”

“What? It wasn’t my fault,” Steve says, trying to defend himself but, Bucky just glares at him again, daring him to dispute that it ‘wasn’t his fault’.

“Yeah, maybe it was my fault,” Steve mumbles, looking down, “You good marrying a criminal?” He asks Tony, who pretends to deliberate it for a while.

“Nah,” he says eventually, “you’re too pretty for crime, or jail.”

“That wasn’t what 24 officers thought,” mutters Bucky.

“Speaking of officers,” Peter interjects, “how many degrees does your groom have?”

“That has nothing to do with officers!”

“Oh, yes it does, for colleges have professors, and those professors have offices, and office is very nearly officer,” Peter corrects, the link being one of the least tenuous he’s said in the past couple days.

This is a pretty easy one for all of them, and they have their answers down in no time.

“And…” Peter drumrolls, “Reveal!”

Bucky and Steve high-five over the _0_ written on both their boards, but Rhodey and Tony seem to be in disagreement.

“When did you get a BA?” Rhodey demands, “What happened to Liberal Arts being ‘useless’?”

“18, after my first PhD, in Fine Art, as a ‘fuck you’ to dear old Dad,” Tony says cheerfully, he’s hung that diploma right next to his three PhDs because he’s proud of it dammit.

“I bet that came in real useful,” Rhodey grumbled.

“You have no idea. Hey, babe,” Tony says, turning to Steve, “what happened to art school?”

Steve shrugs, “Ma got sick in second year, I hadta drop out, someone told me that they never put that in the books ‘n I’m pretty sure it’s ‘cause the government didn’t want to admit that Cap was a dropout.”

“That got dark pretty quick, point goes to Barnes ‘n Noble,” Peter says after a beat, tapping restlessly on his clipboard, _that’s given him way too much power_ , Tony thinks absentmindedly, before he reaches out to rub Steve’s thigh comfortingly.

“You good?” Tony asks quietly, when everyone goes to refill their snacks, the only drawback to throwing it all at them.

“Yeah, yeah, I just- no, no, it’s fine, long time ago, I’m good,” Steve says, melting into Tony’s touch when he runs a hand across the back of his shoulders and presses a kiss to his cheek.

“Boo!” Peter yells, coming back into the living room. He throws an unpopped popcorn kernel at them, “This is a Christian server!”

Steve turns around and sticks out his tongue at him, “Tony, kick him out,” he asks, looking at his fiancé with puppy-dog eyes that he claimed stopped working years ago. Tony grins and pecks him on the lips.

“Peter,” he calls out, keeping his eyes on Steve, “pack your bags, kid.”

“You can’t kick me out of a place I don’t technically live in! And we still have to finish the game!” Peter pouts.

“Settle down kids,” Thor says, blowing a whistle that he’d procured. Tony isn’t exactly sure _where_ he got it from, he’s positive that he, and JARVIS, have never bought a whistle in their lives, let alone two, but then again, he isn’t too about most things that go on in the upper floors of his tower. 

“For part two, we will be doing the exact same as five minutes ago,” Peter declares, blowing _his_ whistle at random intervals.

“Creative,” Bucky mutters.

“Yeah, well, you try be creative, pleasedon’tkillmemydude,” Peter attempts to snark back, however, he values his life, after all, who would be Spider-man if he were gone?

“Stop using that whistle and I’ll think about it,” Bucky glowers.

“Buck, stop,” Steve tries, grinning, “we have a ‘no murdering’ rule.”

“Do we get points for wanting you breathing?” Rhodey asks Peter, who squints at him at deliberates for a second. 

“Yes,” he decides and adds another mark into the _Tin Can Men_ column.

Steve looks up at Peter in betrayal, “I reinforced the ‘no murdering’ rule! I helped you!”

“House-train your pet assassin, then we’ll talk,” Peter says.

“Try to house-train that one, then I’ll think about it,” Steve says, jabbing a thumb over at Natasha, who flung a knife at him.

“No knife throwing in the tower,” Tony mutters under his breath, for maybe the thousandth time this week, _my tower my rules_ , God he regretted that when they made him the enforcer of The Rules (as written by The Avengers (+JARVIS) (+Pepper Potts) (+James Rhodes) (-Clint Barton) (Mostly by The Lovebirds)).  
“Knife-throwing later, lads--”

“Nope.”

“Noted. When did Mom and Dad stop fighting and start f--” 

“Language!” Tony says, cutting him off.

“Wait, what _exactly_ do you mean?” Steve asks.

“When you two started dating,” Peter confirms.

“Tony never told me the exact date!” Rhodey protest.

“Guess.” Peter offers, helpfully, shrugging.

There’s a second long pause as they all write down their answers.

“Ready? Flippity flap guys,” Peter says, with a drumroll.

Rhodey flips his to show a completely blank board.  
Peter looks down at him in disappointment, “I tried to help you!”

Tony scowls at Rhodey, “Well, I guess we’ve lost,” he says, flipping his board when he puts it on the table, showing _new years eve_.

“Hell yeah!” Bucky cheers, flipping his board to show _nye cheesy bastard_ , grinning when Steve’s shows _nye <3_. Cheesy bastard.

“How the hell does he know?” Tony demands, “I swear he wasn’t even around then.”

“Cheesy bastard was stressing out about proposing on New Years, I asked him why then and he said it’s cos it’s his anniversary,” Bucky says.

“Yeah, well, he’s my cheesy bastard,” Tony defends, slipping his hand into Steve’s and tangling their fingers together. Steve, amazingly, blushes slightly. Tony looks up at him in disbelief, “You’ve been flirting with me all night and that--”

“Shut up,” Steve mumbles, interrupting him and blushing harder.

“Oh my God,” Nat groans, “I’m out, I value my blood sugar level.”

“Yeah, good thing, I’m out of questions, it’s a tie,” Peter says, flipping the score sheet to show them.

Bucky glares, “Me ‘n Steve literally slept in the same bed for a year, how have we lost?”

“Wasn’t a--”

“You two WHAT!?” Tony nearly shrieks, he knew that Steve lost his virginity back in the ‘30s, but to Barnes?

“Tony,” Steve says, “we couldn’t afford two beds, nothing happened.”

“If it helps, he probably couldn’t get fucked without getting an asthma attack, didn’t want that on my conscience,” Bucky says shrugging.

“Good to know you have a couple morals lying around,” Natasha says.

“Didn’t stop me,” Steve mutters under his breath, going unheard to everyone but Tony, who laughs and leans into him. Steve wraps his arms around Tony and kisses his head.

“I think we should win,” Bucky says, looking at Peter, only mildly threateningly, completely ignoring Steve and Tony’s… SteveTony-ness. At this point, Tony’s sinking into Steve’s hold, about 3 seconds from falling asleep. Both of them look disgustingly in love. (Stevie, and, he would deny ever even thinking of it, Stark, deserve to be happy.)

“Mr. Stark?” Peter says, inching towards the door.

“Barnes. Stop threatening my kid,” Tony mumbles, twisting himself further into Steve’s hold.

“It’s a tie, no murdering could change that, ‘m sorry Mr. White Wolf Barnes Soldier,” Peter says, moving to half-hide behind Thor.

“Well, I get to marry you, so I think I win,” Steve says, solely for Tony and tightens his arms around him. Tony blushes and buries his face into Steve's chest.

“You’re so fucking cheesy, God, I’m so lucky,” he mumbles, leaning up to kiss him, oblivious to everyone around them.

“Jesus fucking Christ, both of you, go,” Rhodey groans.

Tony, the epitome of maturity, poise and grace, sticks his tongue out at him, twists himself so he’s full in Steve’s lap and winds his arms around his neck, “Take me away from here, baby.”

Steve grins at him and kisses him soundly, moving his arms under Tony, “We’ll see you tomorrow.”  
He lifts both of them up and Tony groans a little, snuggling into Steve’s hold, “That’s never gonna get old.”

“Fuck all the sap out of each other!” Clint yells as they leave.

They’ll give them shit all the livelong day, but everyone knows that, out of all of them, they’re the ones who deserve each other, their happy ending, the most, despite being the sappiest fuckers in the galaxy.

**Author's Note:**

> i hoped you liked it <33
> 
> please leave a comment if you did xx  
> [tumblr post of this fic](https://nohalfway.tumblr.com/post/184186317531/the-james-games)  
> come say hi on [tumblr](https://nohalfway.tumblr.com) (im very loney, prompts are perpetually open)  
> (i may have a stupidly sappy coda for this)


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